Today's Wisdom

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula of failure — which is try to please everybody.

Herbert B. Swope

That's a Lot of Money

A graphic representation of the amount we spend every hour in Iraq.

Sheesh.

This Was My High School Debate Case...

in 1987:

U.S. Department of Agriculture Management of Civil Rights Efforts Continues to Be Deficient Despite Years of Attention

In other words, black farmers have historically had a harder time getting loans than white farmers.

We got to run that case only one time, but we killed with it. The other team hadn't even heard of it. They had no evidence on it, so they were left with nothing to say. Nobody at the tournament was prepared for it.

But after running it just that one time, we had a string of rounds where we were on the negative. So the case had a brief, bright life, and that was it.

Those were good times.

Wisdom from Fred Astaire

From Saturday's Writer's Almanac:

"The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style."

Microsoft ... And Yahoo

This is.

This.

This.

Funny.

Why not.

Yes, I think you ... we ... yes ... no.

The blogger does not move.

I'm Really Liking

The new Jamie Lidell album.

Soul music from a white man!

It'd be a good soundtrack for your summer, is all I'm sayin'.

If You Are As Sick and Tired of This Election As I Am...

Can I get a "Hell Yeah!"

It's Happy Birthday Time Again!

There's a wonderful 8-year-old girl I know!

(No, not this one, though she's got quite a story.)

Shakspear

It's Shakespeare's birthday. A few factoids from the Writer's Almanac:

He was the first writer to invent or record many of our most common turns of phrase, including "foul play," "as luck would have it," "your own flesh and blood," "too much of a good thing," "good riddance," "in one fell swoop," "cruel to be kind," "play fast and loose," "vanish into thin air," "the game is up," "truth will out" and "in the twinkling of an eye."

Happy Birthday to Wifey

"Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday dear Mari-Rooooose!
Happy Birthday to you!

Saw This Movie Last Night

The Rookie.

I know - it's years and years old. But India and watched it and we both liked it.

I Like This Band A Lot

The Helio Sequence

Good pop!

Insert Homer Simpson Joke Here

It just writes itself:

Guards at a Florida nuclear power plant were found sleeping repeatedly between 2004 and 2006, according to a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposal to fine Florida Power and Light Co. The incident mirrored recent reports of sleeping guards at a nuclear power site in Pennsylvania.

“Security officers at [the] Turkey Point [power plant] were willfully inattentive to duty or served as lookouts so other officers could sleep on duty,” said an NRC statement.

The commission also issued a $208,000 fine in January after learning that plant security guards had removed the firing pins from their weapons as part of a labor dispute with security contractor Wackenhut.

Do You Have a Favorite Number?

I don't think I do.

But there's this new song, "Numbers (AKA Numerology)" by These New Puritans, whose lyrics repeatedly and insistently ask:

"What's your favorite number? What does it mean?"

It makes me wonder if I really ought to have a favorite number. Maybe I'd be better off.

An Amazing Aeroplane!

I want an Aerosonde!

This summer, a fleet of small unmanned aircraft, similar to radio-controlled models sold by hobby stores, is to be launched into the heart of hurricanes to beam back information that may sharpen the accuracy of tropical forecasts, scientists say.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration plans to launch the 30-pound drones, called Aerosondes, from Jamaica or Barbados during the 2008 hurricane season into storms that pose an initial threat to the Caribbean.

Manufactured by Aerosonde, based in Melbourne, Australia, the propeller-driven weather probes, which cost more than $50,000 each, are engineering marvels.

Equipped with a 1.6-horsepower engine and flight management computer, the drone can fly an astonishing 2,300 miles on 1.5 gallons of fuel at a cruising speed of about 60 mph.

With such stamina, the drones can be directed into a hurricane and drift in its swirling winds for more than 20 hours. After enduring the turbulence, they are rugged enough to return to their home base intact.

The Aerosondes are part of a broader NOAA program to use unmanned aircraft to monitor global events, such as arctic ice melting, volcanic lava flows and changes in fish and whale populations. NOAA recently invested an additional $3 million in its overall unmanned aircraft program.

Aerosondes already have flown more than 1,000 hours in the Arctic yet are so flexible that they also can fly in baking Sahara heat, said Daniel Fowler, a drone operator with the Aerosonde firm.

He said the plane is constructed with tough polymers, such as those used in bulletproof vests, and other advanced materials.

30 pounds: That's about what a two-year-old weighs.

1.6 HP engine: That's less than half the horsepower of my cheap lawnmower.

2300 miles: That's about the distance from Bloomington to Vancouver, BC.

1.5 gallons of gas: That's better than 1,500 miles per gallon.

Wow. That's about all I can say. Wow.

Why You Should Drink a Beer Today

It's the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition for beer. Hard liquor was still illegal, as it had to wait a few months until the Constitutional amendment was repealed.

Somehow it seems like it would be longer ago than that. I've been alive more than half of that time, and as we all know I'm still a young sporty gentleman.

"My Significant Ex"

I liked the story about this guy who won a $136 million lottery jackpot. My favorite part was how well he seems to get along with his ex-wife. He calls her "my significant ex":

"I called my sister; she didn't believe me. I called my daughter; she thought I was nuts," said [David] Sneath, who said he made his first call to his ex-wife, Deborah.

Deborah, whom he called "my significant ex," attended the Thursday news conference where Sneath was presented with a large replica of a $136 million check. His daughter was there with her daughter, as was his son...

Seems like a good guy - all best to him.

Nice Poem

I never read this one before today. It's Walt Whitman:

Once I Pass'd through a Populous City

Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,
Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met there who detain'd me for love of me,
Day by day and night by night we were together--all else has long been forgotten by me,
I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung to me,
Again we wander, we love, we separate again,
Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go,
I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.

Is there anyone who can't relate to this?

Remember Men Without Hats?

The band from the 80s who sang "The Safety Dance" and other silly pop songs?

Well, now there are Men Without Pants.

I'm not sure if this is an improvement.

I Got Nothing

I've been pen-spinning for 20+ years, but compared to these kids I got nothing.

Nothing. At. All.

The Moon + Baseball = ?

Some maps are much, much better than others.

This, for instance, is a map of the Apollo 11 astronauts' moonwalks, superimposed on a baseball diamond.

Happy Birthday to "Happy Birthday"

It's the birthday of the woman who co-wrote "Happy Birthday to You," Patty Smith Hill, born in Anchorage, Kentucky (1868).

Song Title of the Day

"Diamond Hoo Ha Man" by Supergrass

I'm actually sort of scared by the idea of a diamond hoo ha.

What's the Deal with Denton, Texas?

Why is it that I keep finding bands that I like from Denton, Texas? The place is only about 100,000 people, and it keeps producing good music.

First Midlake, and now The Marked Men.

I wonder if Bloomington-Normal will ever produce a band.

Probably not.

A Monument to Human Achievement...and Stupidity

Did you hear they're going to shut down one of the Mars rovers, Spirit? Do you want to know why?

Scientists plan to put one of the twin Mars rovers to sleep and limit the activities of the other robot to fulfill a NASA order to cut $4 million from the program's budget, mission team members said Monday.

The news comes amid belt-tightening at NASA headquarters, which is under pressure to cover cost overruns of a flagship Mars mission to land a Hummer-sized rover on the Red Planet next year.

It costs NASA about $20 million annually to keep the rovers running. The latest directive from NASA to cut $4 million means Spirit will be forced into hibernation in the coming weeks, said principal investigator Steve Squyres of Cornell University.

Besides resting Spirit, scientists also likely will have to reduce exploration by Opportunity, which is probing a large crater near the equator. Instead of sending up commands to Opportunity every day to drive or explore a rock, its activities may be limited to every other day, said John Callas, the Mars Exploration Rover project manager at JPL.

"Any cut at any time when these rovers are healthy would be bad timing," Callas said. "These rovers are still viable capable vehicles in very good health."

So let's review. Over the weekend the Fed can find $30 billion to bail out the dumbasses at Bear Stearns, who are supposed to understand the difference between a good investment and a bad one, but apparently don't. Meanwhile the scientists who engineer a pair of robots, load them in a rocket, fire them into space, land them on the next planet over, and operate them for 4 years can't get a lousy $20 million to keep them running.

Unbelievable.

Fun With Phone Books

True or False: If you interweave the pages of two phone books, it is impossible to pull them apart.

Answer here

Song Title of the Day

"Bi-Polar Bear" by Wax Fang.

Not News

Guys suck at picking up hints from women:

More often than not, guys interpret even friendly cues, such as a subtle smile from a gal, as a sexual come-on, and a new study discovers why: Guys are clueless.

More precisely, they are somewhat oblivious to the emotional subtleties of non-verbal cues, according to a new study of college students.

"Young men just find it difficult to tell the difference between women who are being friendly and women who are interested in something more," said lead researcher Coreen Farris of Indiana University's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

But the study, to be detailed in the April issue of the journal Psychological Science, also found that it goes both ways for guys - they mistake females' sexual signals as friendly ones. The researchers suggest guys have trouble noticing and interpreting the subtleties of non-verbal cues, in either direction.

One common explanation for reports of men taking a friendly gesture as "she wants me," is based on men's inherent interest in sex. However, Farris and her colleagues didn't find this to be the case. Rather than seeing the world through sex-colored glasses, men seemed just to have blurry vision of sorts, overall. For instance, the college guys sometimes mistook sexual advances as pal-like gestures.

Yep, that was me. When I was single, I was absolutely the worst at this.

The. Worst.

I wonder if a guy could actually improve on this, or if they're just doomed?

I Might Want to See This Show

James McMurtry and Justin Earle (Steve's kid) are going to be playing in Bloomington May 16.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame - In Normal

Hey, this would be cool:

Multiple investor groups have expressed an interest in bringing an independent minor league baseball team to Normal, according to consultant Mike Thiessen. Thiessen is discussing with potential investors a stadium that would seat 3,500 to 4,500.

A Normal baseball team would likely play in either the Frontier League or the Northern League. Both Northern League commissioner Clark Griffith and Frontier League commissioner Bill Lee have expressed interest in having a Normal team join their league, possibly as early as 2009.

The Frontier League and Northern League are really low leagues - it's where you play if no major league team drafts you into its farm system. But baseball is baseball.

Apparently they're looking at building a stadium near Heartland Community College, which wants a decision by April 1. So we'll know something soon!

I Need to Read This Guy

I've never even heard of this guy, but I need to read him. From today's Writer's Almanac:

It is the birthday of Russian humorist, dramatist, and novelist Nikolai Gogol, born in 1809 in Sorochinsk, a town in what is now Ukraine.

Gogol wrote about his childhood in Ukraine, and some of his writings featured the devils, witches, and demons of Ukrainian folklore. These writings led to his book Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka -- a book that delighted the Russian literary world and made Gogol an overnight celebrity.

His novel Dead Souls (1842) was a satire and is considered to be Gogol's masterpiece. Gogol also wrote two famous stories, "The Nose (1836)," about a nose that disappears off the face of a collegiate assessor, is found by a barber, and then parades all around St. Petersburg, and "The Overcoat (1842)," about a man who acquires an overcoat and then dies of a broken heart when it is stolen. Gogol once wrote of his comic works, "The merriment observed in my early works corresponded to a certain spiritual need. I was subject to fits of melancholy which I could not even explain to myself and which may have originated in my poor health. To distract myself, I imagined every conceivable kind of funny story. I dreamed up droll characters and figures out of thin air and purposely placed them in the most comical circumstances."

The writer Dostoyevsky once famously remarked, "We have all come out from under Gogol's overcoat."

Russians are funny.

BTW, today is also the anniversary of the release of Bob Dylan's debut album.

The Lunatic Express

Here's a nice new blog, The Lunatic Express, logging the round-the-world exploits of writer Carl Hoffman, who explains the reason for his journey thusly:

We’re lucky. The world is on the move; people aren’t just in their villages anymore, and most of them are subject to horrendous travel. Buses that turn over and plunge from cliffs. Commuters literally crushed to death on the trains in Mumbai. Planes that might not leave at all, or worse – you’re 25 times more likely to die on an African airline than on an American one.

So I’m off to circumnavigate the globe, traveling as the rest of the world must – on the world’s slowest, most crowded, or most dangerous, buses, boats, planes and trains. I want stories, yes, but perspective, too. I want to see the world in a new light, a new way. I want to meet these people.

Hoffman's eventually going to write a book about his travels. And apparently he's not kidding about the hazards of his travels. Today he's in Colombia and writes:

Regarding bus safety, the government of Columbia was progressive: since 2004 it required bus companies to post safety statistics in every ticket window. At first the stats for my bus didn’t seem too bad – only 18 accidents, eight injuries and six deaths. But that was only for the first two months of 2008. And no one seemed to have died on other lines. Oh well, I bought a ticket and settled in.

A hundred years ago writers traveled around the world and then wrote books about it when they returned home. Now we get to follow along during the first-draft. Pretty cool.

Maybe the Most Bizarre Story I Have Ever Read

I am simply speechless about this:

Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years — so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the boyfriend finally called police.

Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was "somewhat disoriented," and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.

Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. "We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

The boyfriend told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

"And her reply would be, `Maybe tomorrow,'" Whipple said. "According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom."

I guess not.

Thanks for All the Fish

Douglas Adams would have been 56 today. It's still hard to believe he was gone so young. This is a quote of his that I hadn't read before today:

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

I can relate to that!

Move Here Today!

Here's a place where Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged would feel right at home:

The mayor of the French village of Sarpourenx has passed an edict forbidding the 260 residents of his small hamlet from passing on within city limits.

Mayor Gerard Lalanne complains his town has run out of room at the local cemetery, so he's passed an ordinance that states "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."

What happens if you do? The law promises to severely punish the offenders, which would literally have to be a fate worse than death.

Apparently the undertaker's lobby is very weak in Sarpournenx.

Myspace Sucks

I've got a myspace page which I don't visit very often. Lately, though, I've been trying to keep up with it a bit.

But almost every time I log on to myspace, I get an error message because the pages time out before they finish loading. These are not fat pages - I'm just trying to read comments, friends' blog entries, etc. And this is on a broadband connection.

Myspace sucks.

Politics

This is the kind of political writing I can relate to:

One of the few really reliable rules of presidential political warfare [is]: Bugs Bunny always beats Daffy Duck.

Bugs and Daffy represent polar opposites in how to deal with the world. Bugs is at ease, laid back, secure, confident. His lidded eyes and sly smile suggest a sense that he knows the way things work. He's onto the cons of his adversaries. Sometimes he is glimpsed with his elbow on the fireplace mantel of his remarkably well-appointed lair, clad in a smoking jacket. Bugs never raises his voice, never flails at his opponents or at the world. He is rarely an aggressor. When he is pushed too far and must respond, he borrows a quip from Groucho Marx: "Of course, you realize this means war." And then, whether his foe is hapless hunter Elmer Fudd, varmint-shooting Yosemite Sam, or a raging bull, Bugs always prevails.

Daffy Duck, by contrast, is ever at war with a hostile world. He fumes, he clenches his fists, his eyes bulge, and his entire body tenses with fury. His response to bad news is a sibilant sneer ("Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin!"). Daffy is constantly frustrated, sometimes by outside forces, sometimes by his own overwrought response to them. In one classic duel with Bugs, the two try to persuade Elmer Fudd to shoot the other—until Daffy, tricked by Bugs' wordplay, screams, "Shoot me now!"

In every modern presidential election in which the candidates have personified a clear choice between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Bugs has prevailed. Go back to 1960, the first campaign in which television was the clear dominant medium. John "Bugs" Kennedy was cool, restrained, ironic. Richard "Daffy" Nixon was brooding, suspicious, scowling. Look at 1980, when Ronald Reagan's sunny approach to the campaign and to the world stood in sharp contrast to President Jimmy Carter's talk of a crisis of the spirit. Or think about 2000, when George W. Bush suggested a candidate who could easily live with defeat, as opposed to Al Gore, who seemed wound far tighter.

Pretty true, that.

"What's up, Doc?" vs. "You're despicable!"

Is Mushroom Soup Soup?

So I'm enjoying my lunch today - a yummy bowl of cream of mushroom soup. And I'm wondering:

Does anybody else besides me actually eat cream of mushroom soup, as soup? Every other time I've seen it served, it has been and ingredient in a casserole.

Mom always used to serve it as soup, so it seems perfectly natural to me.

But maybe I'm the only one.

Headline of the Day

Kid Rock pleads not guilty to battery in Waffle House fight

Dentyne Field?

Apparently the CEO of the Tribune Company is thinking of selling the naming rights to Wrigley Field.

What a boneheaded move. It would be colossally stupid for any company to buy those rights. Cubs fans - and a lot of baseball fans in general - would hate you for it.

So in an attempt to market yourself, you'd actually hurt your marketing and PR. Talk about "perversity in Chicago..."

One exception: I think The Wrigley Company could get away with it. :-)

Think Positive!

It may be only 22 degrees this morning, but I just put away my space heater till next winter.

It's almost March, dammit!

In the interest of positive thinking, I am also posting a photo of spring flowers.

Warm weather will eventually come!

Arrrr.....

I'm Against Pollution! (A Rant by India)

I think pollution stinks!

Man is going to pollute himself right out of existence!

Pollution kills animals and plants!

If we keep polluting the earth, pretty soon there will be so much trash on the Earth that the plants will die out and the animals will die out, and then we will run out of oxygen!

My pollution solution is to pick up trash and find the nearest trash can!

We are our own enemy!

A New Great Song

"Breath Thin" by Tulsa

I swear they stole that guitar riff from an old REM song, but I can't figure out which one.

Band Name of the Day

A Gun That Shoots Knives

That would be pretty cool, wouldn't it?

A Nice Piece of Writing

From today's Writer's Almanac, an excerpt of:

Leaving Kansas City
by George Bradley

Kansas City depends a lot on the way
You look at it. If you approach from the West,
It takes on a certain weary beauty:
Misguided, uninspired, familiar.
But driving through from the East,
It's just another group of grubby people
After you thought you'd passed all that. ...

On the only radio station, a voice explains,
In an accent you wouldn't have thought possible,
The most practical way of doing something
It would never have occurred to you to do.
The voice is distant and doesn't seem aimed at you. ...

There is a place called Colorado where you will,
Of course, be very glad to arrive, where the others
Wanted to go; and you will sit smug in the shade
High up on a mountain, feeling the wind
Send shivers over your body, looking back
At the great sickening swoop of the plain
And think it part of a grand design:
Satisfying, necessary, even beautiful.

What Spam Does to My Mood

Does anybody else have the same reaction to spam as I do?

Ideally I like to start my day with a nice clean desk and a nice clean slate. But because of spammers, every morning I start my day the exact opposite way. My inbox is flooded with a huge mountain of garbage, and my first task is to sift through it to find the few nuggets that are worthwhile.

It's just a depressing and altogether wrong way to start each day's work. It has a negative psychological effect on me. It makes me grumpy.

Monday Fun

It's impossible to watch this without laughing. (Make sure sound is on.)

How Old Is YouTube?

Believe it or not, it's just three years old, and today is its birthday:

It is the birthday of the popular web site YouTube. The domain name was registered on February 15, 2005.

The Weather Two Blocks From My House

One of the joys of the Internets:

Anytime I want, I can check the weather two blocks from my house.

It's 22.5 degrees right now, with south winds at 5 mph and humidity of 75%. (I thought it was supposed to be warmer today?)

w00f!

The beagle that won "best in show" at the Westminster Dog Show is from Belleville!

Uno, the champion beagle bred and born in Belleville, was top dog after he made history Tuesday night — becoming the first beagle to win Best in Show title at the 132nd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York.

Tuesday night, Uno was clearly the crowd favorite, and drew a standing ovation from the sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden when he was picked.

The only dog consistently listed among America's most popular breeds for nearly 100 years, a beagle had never won in the 100 times Westminster picked a winner.

Uno was born and bred in Belleville by Kathy Weichert, but a team of co-owners and handlers show him.

"We're known as Team Uno," Weichert said. "You have to have a team when you want to campaign a dog like this. Dog showing is very, very expensive. There is no money in dog shows, none to be made. It's an expensive hobby and we do it for the love of the dogs. It's for the betterment of the breed, and that's why we do it."

It's sort of weird there's no money in it, what with dog shows being on teevee and all. You'd think the owners would get a cut.

But still ... good boy, Uno!

(BTW, the Jennifer Bowen who wrote the article is no relation.)

This Post Is For Shane Only

Listen to Ramsay Midwood today. You may find this a challenge, as his website says:

There is almost no usable information about him available, not even on this site.

Howsoever, his MySpace page says:

I am concentrating on creating a device that can manipulate electron holes. This will allow me to create a spin-based transistor.

This is your mission.

Magic Mirror

Wondering something:

All three of our girls have the habit of talking into mirrors. I don't mean they go off by themselves and do goofy stuff in front of the mirror - everybody does that.

I mean, you're having a conversation with one of them, and instead of looking at you when she's talking, she's looking at herself in a mirror (e.g., a dresser mirror in the bedroom or the door mirror in the bathroom).

I can't count how many times I've said to them, "Talk to me, not the mirror." India seems to be growing out of it, but Anya and Quinn do it all the time.

What I'm wondering is, is this normal? Do other kids do this, or is this just another data point for the weirdness of our family?

They Sound A Bit Like DEVO...

playing at a small-town summer festival in a moon colony.

Estocar

Thought for the Day

Still working through Confucius. Reading the book backwards, for reasons unclear even to myself. Anyway, this is Book 14, Chapter 28:

The Master said: 'One does not worry about the fact that other people do not appreciate one. One worries about the fact that one is incapable.'

I'm forever worried about whether other people appreciate me. Someday I'll eventually figure out that, in reality, they hardly ever think about me at all.

The Songs, They Are Funny

Songs to Wear Pants To

Favorites: "It's Too Loud" and "I Am Bjork."

I Am An Ass

I spent some of this morning clearing out some e-mails from my inbox. It's been a couple of years since I did this - seriously.

I noticed a definite and upsetting trend - a couple of years ago, I used e-mail a lot more to stay in touch with friends. (Isn't that the whole idea of the Internets - to be able to stay in touch with people better?)

Lately, I never write or call or anything.

I am an ass.

Please feel free to comment to this posting, telling me just exactly how much of an ass I am.

You can expect a call or e-mail from me.

Today

If you're in a Super Tuesday state, remember to vote today.

I did this morning, on the way to work. For Obama, who shouldn't have any problem winning here in his home state. It was nice to vote in a primary that actually mattered.

Also remember to celebrate Mardi Gras! Before voting, after voting ... doesn't matter!

Song Title of the Day

"Death to Los Campesinos!" by Los Campesinos!

Very much fun is this music.

Probably Pointless, But Kind of Fun

Test your vocabulary and end world hunger (?)

Thought for the Day

Confucius again:

Zixia said: "If day by day one is aware of what one lacks, but month by month never forgets what one is capable of, one may definitely be said to be fond of learning."

The "lacking" thing? Easy.

The "capable of" bit? Not so much.

The Weather

Here's what it looks like right now:


Tonight it's supposed to be 11 degrees.

Now We Are Six

It's somebody's birthday today!

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five, I was just alive.
But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

- A. A. Milne

I Thought It Was Gonna Die

Good news! They're going to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope.

When astronauts overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope this summer, they will leave behind a vastly more powerful orbital observatory to scan the universe.

Set to launch aboard NASA's shuttle Atlantis on Aug. 7, the Hubble servicing mission will be the fifth - and final - sortie to upgrade the aging space telescope.

"We're not only going up to Hubble to refurbish it, but also to expand its grasp tremendously," said Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, in a recent briefing. "We expect to make the very best discoveries of the entire two-decade plus Hubble program with the new instruments to be installed."

"This refurbished Hubble [will be] a new telescope," said astronomer Sandra Faber of the University of California, Santa Cruz. "We estimate that at the end of this repair Hubble will be 90 times more powerful than when it was first launched."

"When the astronauts leave Hubble for the last time, it will be at the apex of its capabilities," said senior project scientist David Leckrone of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "It will be the first time since 1993 that there will be five working instruments aboard."

The result, researchers said, is about five extra years of science for Hubble before its controlled deorbit sometime after 2020. To prepare for the space telescope's eventual demise, spacewalkers will also attach a connecting port that will allow a robotic tug to dock with Hubble.

"None of us could have imagined what this fourth-generation suite of instruments can do," said Stern, adding the 90-fold jump in observation power for Hubble will be unprecedented. "We will have the capability, literally, of approximately 100 Hubbles [circa] 1990 when this mission is done."

Yea!

The last I'd heard, I thought they were going to let it die.

A Great Song

"The Righteous Path" by the Drive-by Truckers.

It makes you want to shout, "Yeeeeee-haww!"

Seriously.

Thought for the Day

Another from the Analects of Confucius. Today I ran across his version of the Golden Rule. It's virtually the same. This is Book 15, Chapter 24:

Zigong asked, "Is there a single word such that one could practice it throughout one's life?" The Master said: "Reciprocity perhaps? Do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you."

I like that word, "reciprocity." I also like the way it's phrased as a question. Uncertainty is more often a virtue than a fault.

Mari-Rose May Feel Vindicated By This

Kids don't like clowns.

Bad news for Coco and Blinko -- children don't like clowns and even older kids are scared of them.

The study, reported in the Nursing Standard magazine, found all the 250 patients aged between four and 16 they quizzed disliked the use of clowns [as decorations in kids' rooms], with even the older ones finding them scary.

"We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable."

Mari-Rose doesn't like them, either ... bad experience at the Bozo show. (Don't ask.)

I must be the outlier in this survey. I liked clowns when I was little. They gave me candy at parades and made me laugh at the circus. The only weird part for me was, sometimes at local parades and fairs, my dad would talk to one of them that he knew. The clown would totally break character - so even though he was still in his clown costume, he'd suddenly become this sort of fat, ordinary, middle-aged guy talking to my dad about cars and taxes and stuff.

If You Like 80s Music

You'll like The Mary Onettes.

I swear, almost every band I find myself liking these days is a Swedish pop group.

I Saw One of These...

On a walk today.

It was just barely poking out of the frozen ground in the park, right here in Atlanta, Illinois.

It must be a tough little bugger, to be growing in this weather. At present the temperature is 26 degrees, with a dusting of snow on the ground.

I guess the dandelion sprouted last weekend, when it got very warm and springlike and rained biblically, flooding Pontiac and Watseka.

This makes two years in a row I've seen something odd in January. Last year I saw a robin. But last winter was extremely warm, until we got a cold blast in February. This winter has been quite normal.

By the way, if you want to feel warm, just do a Google Image search for dandelions. Endless images of spring.

Hops!

I'd noticed this trend anecdotally, but today it appears in the newspaper of record:

Whether using an inordinate amount of traditional ingredients like malt or hops, or adding flavorings undreamed of by Old World brewers, American brewers have created a signature style that beer enthusiasts seem both to love and hate.

Forget about I.P.A.’s, strong, hoppy brews developed by the British centuries ago to withstand the ocean voyage to colonial India. Americans are now making double I.P.A.’s, Extreme I.P.A.’s, even Unearthly I.P.A.’s.

From Asia to Italy, brewers are trying to emulate these beers. Not content with the Moylander Double I.P.A., Brendan Moylan, the founder of Moylan Brewing Company in Novato, Calif., now makes what he calls a triple I.P.A., Hopsickle Imperial, which he said was “the hoppiest beer on earth.”

I've not tried the beer, but I like the idea. Not everyone does, though:

“The hoppiest beer?” asked Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery. “It’s a fairly idiotic pursuit, like a chef saying, ‘This is the saltiest dish.’ Anyone can toss hops in a pot, but can you make it beautiful?”

Most of the extreme beers today are characterized by their ultrahoppiness. Of the 25 beers we tasted, at least 20 of them would fall into the category of exaggerated I.P.A.’s regardless of what they call themselves.To carry their extraordinary bitterness and aromatic zest, these beers need a sturdy foundation, so they tend to have outsize malty qualities as well as high alcohol.

Yum. So what's good?

Our favorite was the robust 90 Minute Imperial I.P.A. from Dogfish Head, a beer that balances its exaggerated caramel and chocolate sweetness with a bracing bitterness derived from hops.

Our No. 2 beer, the Weyerbacher Double Simcoe I.P.A., seemed to embody the term “killer,” the extreme beer fan’s favorite compliment. Killer hops, killer fruit, overwhelming yet bearable, even enjoyable, because it is so well balanced.

The No. 3 beer, the I.P.A. Maximus from Lagunitas, was something of a lightweight in this crowd with a mere 7.5 percent alcohol, yet it was lively and energetic with a lush citrus perfume.

You would not call the Victory Hop Wallop mellow, but it was fresh and delicious. And you would never call Mad River’s Steelhead Double I.P.A. or Flying Dog’s Double Dog Double Pale Ale subdued. Their signature hop aromas practically punch you in the face.

Now I know some brands to look for. But alackaday! All is not well!

The brewing world is now facing an international hops shortage. No, it’s not because of the daunting amount of hops used in many extreme beers. It’s more a result of the normal cycle of supply and demand.

Overproduction of hops in the early 1990s resulted in excess supply and depressed prices, said Ralph Olson, a hops dealer based in Yakima, Wash. As a result, world hop acreage has fallen from about 234,000 in 1994 to 113,000 in 2006. It may take several years, Mr. Olson suggested, for hops production to be able to meet current demands.

Meanwhile, expect beer prices to go up.

Sigh. Some rain must fall...

She Hate Me

So ... last night after rehearsal for the play I'm doing at the local community theatre, a few of us in the cast go out for a frosty beverage. It's a tradition of sorts on Tuesdays.

At the local watering hole, a few other people always show up - people who do stuff at the theatre but aren't involved in this particular production. Everybody knows that the theatre people will be there on Tuesday night, so they just come.

Last night, I noticed something odd. One of these other people - a collegeish-aged young woman whom I've seen there a couple of times - really, really doesn't like me. She shot me a couple of dirty looks, and when I left for the evening, gave me a contemptuous sneer before looking way. Trust me about this - she's an actress, so if she wants to nonverbally communicate contempt, she's really good at it.

The weird thing is, I don't think I've ever said more than two words to her. She's been at the Tuesday night table a few times, but we've never had any conversation or anything.

Which is curious to me. She clearly does not like me. Why? I can understand why someone - probably most people - would be ambivalent about me. I'm just this guy, you know? But I don't understand why someone would make such a display of disliking me, when I haven't even talked to her.

Anyway - she hate me.

Thought for the Day

I've been browsing through the Analects of Confucius lately. Today I liked this one (Book 15, Chapter 19):

The Master said: "The gentleman is pained at the lack of ability within himself; he is not pained at the fact that others do not appreciate him."

This Just Leaves Me Blubbering

How odd.

First, I found this story in Time Magazine:

After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency. Since the Burkes were young, scandal-free and solvent, they had no trouble with the New Jersey Bureau of Children's Services—until investigators came to the line on the application that asked for the couple's religious affiliation.

John Burke, an atheist, and his wife, a pantheist, had left the line blank. As a result, the bureau denied the Burkes' application. After the couple began court action, however, the bureau changed its regulations, and the couple was able to adopt a baby boy from the Children's Aid and Adoption Society in East Orange.

Last year the Burkes presented their adopted son, David, now 3, with a baby sister, Eleanor Katherine, now 17 months, whom they acquired from the same East Orange agency. Since the agency endorsed the adoption, the required final approval by a judge was expected to be pro forma. Instead, Superior Court Judge William Camarata raised the religious issue.

In an extraordinary decision, Judge Camarata denied the Burkes' right to the child because of their lack of belief in a Supreme Being. Despite the Burkes' "high moral and ethical standards," he said, the New Jersey state constitution declares that "no person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience."

Judge Camarata ordered the parents to send David's sister back to the New Jersey adoption agency. Two weeks ago, aided by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Burkes appealed directly to the New Jersey Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. If they fail in their appeal, Eleanor Katherine may have to leave the only family she has ever known and await adoption by another couple whose religious convictions satisfy the State of New Jersey.

Now, two veryweird things about this:

1. It seems that, in Judge Camarata's opinion, the State of New Jersey has a fairly narrow and dogmatic definition of "Almighty God." Since my own beliefs are somewhat pantheistic, I'm just slack-jawed about this.

2. Upon further review, I found out that this is a story from 1970, which is making the rounds today. It's #3 in Time's list of most-viewed stories. It's amazing what you can cook up on the Internets - even interest in a 37-year-old story.

Today in the U.K.: Blaaaaaaaachhhh!

Ugh.

A "vomiting virus" is sweeping Britain.

Band Name of the Day

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.

It's good stuff, too. Brit pop. I like the song they've got as a free download, "Waiting for the Monster to Drown."

Fact of the Day

From the Washington Post:

In Sweden, Britain and Italy, new homes average under 1,000 square feet. By 2005, the average newly built U.S. home measured 2,434 square feet...

The only thing that surprises me is, I thought the average new U.S. house would have been bigger than that. Most of the new ones I see are a lot bigger.

Guess What's Legal Again?

Absinthe.

Break out your Hemingway short story collection and raise a glass!

Classy

After the Washington Redskins' starting safety, Sean Taylor, was killed by an intruder in his home, his team lined up with only 10 men on the field for their first play against the Buffalo Bills.

They gave up a 22-yard running play, but it was a perfectly classy thing to do.

Another Good Quote

A nice quote from Madeleine L'Engle, who would have been 89 today:

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."

The Song on the Radio

Right at the present moment, BBC 6 is playing "Pretty Vacant" by the Sex Pistols.

Somehow it sounds different on the BBC.

Pretty cool.

Don't Make an Analogy You Don't Understand

Good grief. I came across this today and I'm having a hard time imagining how this guy could have any less of an idea what the suicide squeeze is:

For sports fans like George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, the Annapolis meeting is the diplomatic equivalent of baseball's suicide squeeze bunt play: in the last inning of a nine-inning game, with runners on base and everyone wound up with anticipation, the manager tries a daring move that puts all the runners in motion while the hitter taps a soft bunt that aims to bring in a run and win the game.

The suicide squeeze is one of the most exciting plays in baseball, perhaps in any sports. But it usually fails, because it is based on a combination of desperation and offensive deceit that rarely add up to a winning strategy.

For the record: The squeeze play does not occur only in the 9th inning; it does not involve starting all the runners, and it usually is successful - 86 percent of the time.

I Think I'm in Pittsburgh

Every now and again I check my blog stats through Blogger, just to see if anybody ever visits this silly thing. (Surprisingly, people sometimes do. I get maybe two or three hits a day, and my Technorati rank has soared all the way to 8,911,336.)

For a few weeks I'd been noticing that the blog was getting regular hits from Pittsburgh, which was odd because I don't know anybody in Pittsburgh and I've never even visited there.

Still, I flattered myself that there might actually be somebody in the Steel City who found my blog so interesting as to become a regular visitor. Wow! I have a public!

But yesterday I noticed something else. I've been getting almost no hits from Illinois. Lots of hits from Pittsburgh, no hits from Illinois. Hmm.

There is only one explanation I can think of for this: My Internet connection must have been rerouted, and my mysterious reader in Pittsburgh is ... me.

So I guess that's where I am now. Pittsburgh. If you're every traveling through, stop by and, umm, say hello.

One for The Quote Book

"You don't have to leave my side, but you do have to let me pull my underwear out of my butt."

- Mari-Rose, Nov. 24, 2007

A Little Late For Thanksgiving, But...

On the table at Alice's Restaurant:

Cream of Salt and Pepper Soup

(Yes, it's the Alice and the restaurant.)

Glam Rock Lives!

I'm getting behind the times. Something is happening under our feet, and I didn't even notice.

Apparently that ill-advised G-N-R tattoo you've been trying to hide all these years is becoming a badge of honor:

Call it “hair metal” or “mullet metal,” even “butt rock,” or worse, “cock rock.” But whatever you say it is, and whether you listen to it or not, 1980s-style heavy metal is here again.

Rockers everywhere have embraced the heavy-metal thunder. Again, at last, L.A.’s Sunset Strip looks on any given night like the video for Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls.” You can rest assured that now it’s safe to roll down J Street bumping Whitesnake while belting out the lyrics to “Here I Go Again” with your windows open.

Bands such as Whitesnake, Dokken, Dio, Iron Maiden (with Bruce Dickinson) and Judas Priest (with Rob Halford) have recently reformed (or have come out of hiding) and are either working on new albums or on tour.

What does it all mean? It means what it meant the first time: not much. So how about just enjoying it? Grow out that hair, slip on those cock-rock boots and drop the needle on your favorite metal masterpiece.

For those about to rock, we salute you.

Your Quiz for the Day

Did the following headline appear in a major mainstream newspaper, or in The Onion?

Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything

Answer here.

On Creativity

After the death of Norman Mailer, who was noted for his tendency to swing for the fences and either hit a home run or embarrass himself, Joel Achenbach has blogged a two-part series on creativity, titled "When Genius Bombs."

I'm going to quote it at length because I like it so much. Emphases are mine.

Geniuses mess up too. This is a phenomenon that permeates the creative world.

There is bad Beethoven. There are failed Picassos. There are incorrect theories by Albert Einstein. Duke Ellington would be the first to say that some riffs worked better than others. In the 1940s Orson Welles made both the instant classic "Citizen Kane" and the instant trivia answer "The Lady From Shanghai."

Just because you are a great composer named Wagner doesn't mean that everything you do will be Wagnerian.

(snip)

The problem with "genius" is that it doesn't give the great talents their due for working hard and plodding through difficult problems and taking chances and knowing which ideas to dump and which to deliver. Geniuses create the same way total ding-dongs create. Geniuses still have to put on their paint one stroke at a time.

Picasso would paint something, look at it -- at this point it would fetch a staggering price simply because it was a Picasso -- and then just paint over it, start again, because it wasn't good enough.

W.H. Auden once said, "The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor."

(snip)

George Bernard Shaw talked about the "field theory" of creativity, borrowing a term from physics. Good ideas do not exist alone but in a larger field of imagination. As a young man Shaw wrote five novels. Can you name one? Shaw had to work through his novelist phase before he could arrive, in his late thirties, as a playwright.

Shaw believed in productivity -- just keep writing, was his advice to everyone. Norma Jenckes, a Shaw scholar at the University of Cincinnati, says Shaw's attitude was that "you had to write yourself through all sorts of things, and then something might become your masterpiece."

Herein lies the lesson for everyone, the pros, the amateurs, the dumb-dumbs, anyone who has ever tried to think creatively. Humans are by nature a creative species, but we have to learn to manage our creativity, feed it, weed it, prune it, whack it back if necessary. We have to forgive our mistakes. No one is always brilliant.

Children instinctively know this. It is only as they grow up that society drums into their little noggins the fact that they're without real talent and ought to put down the crayons and the finger paint and learn to watch television like everyone else.

(snip)

The academics who study creativity have concluded that geniuses come up with ideas and analyze situations pretty much like everyone else. "Nobody is a genius simply because of the shape of their head and their brain," says Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard. "People get ideas. Nobody knows where ideas come from. And they try to work them out. And people who are the best artists are very good working out the implications of those ideas. But it's not the case that every idea is a good idea."

(snip)

Within a field such as math, someone can be good at one thing and inept at another. The mathematician Henri Poincare could not add. He wrote, "I must confess I am absolutely incapable of doing an addition sum without a mistake."

(snip)

Mark Rosenthal, a curator at the National Gallery, applies the rule to artists: "The really good ones are trying extremely hard every time out. They're always trying to make a masterpiece, they're always trying to do something wonderful."

He says that being creative is a lonely job. Every artist's studio is the same. There is one chair. The artist paints half the day, and sits in the chair the other half of the day, looking critically at the art. "There's only one chair because artists work alone. And they sit there. I'm sure if we could be transported back to Rembrandt's time, it'd be the same thing. There'd be one chair."

(snip)

Robert Sternberg, a Yale psychologist and co-author of "Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity," says creativity has three aspects:

1. Synthetic. You have to generate ideas. Geniuses come up with a lot more ideas than everyone else. "In most fields, the people who really are well known are prodigious. They're large-volume producers. But you don't even realize that in their repertoire is a lot of junk. You just don't hear about the junk," says Sternberg.

2. Analytic. You have to know which ideas are the good ones. J. Carter Brown recalls the prayer that the esteemed art critic Bernard Berenson used to say: "Our Father, who art in Heaven, give us this day our daily idea, and forgive us the one we had yesterday."

3. Practical. You need to know how to market the idea. How to pitch it.

(snip)

Leon Botstein, the composer, says you can't plan your breakthroughs. You just have to keep plugging away, and wait, and hope.

"Breakthrough is not when you want it, it's not when you expect it. It's a function of the constant activity. It is only the constant activity that generates the breakthrough."

And what causes the constant activity? It's not money. It's not glory. It's an "inner necessity," he says. Unless you have this inner necessity to create, you'll probably never do anything of brilliance, Botstein believes.

"Without constant, almost irrational, obsessive engagement, you'll never make the breakthrough," he says. "The difference between you and the person you consider great is not raw ability. It's the inner obsessiveness. The inability to stop thinking about it. It's a form of madness."

So this is what separates the great ones from the rest of the world. It is not simply that they are smarter, savvier, more brilliant. They are geniuses because they can't stand to be anything else.

A Good Poem

"I Used to Be But Now I Am" by Ted Berrigan. My favorite lines:

I used to be part of the problem,
But now I am the problem.

Moooooo....

Ye gods:

A cow plunged from a 200-foot cliff onto the hood of a minivan on a highway in central Washington state, according to police.

The car's occupants, Charles and Linda Everson, were not hurt in Sunday's accident, but the cow was euthanized at the scene.

"If the cow had fallen a split second later, the animal would have landed right in their laps," said Jeff Middleton, criminal deputy of the Chelan County Sheriff's Department.

You wonder what the cow was thinking...

In similar news, last night while driving home on Old Route 66, I had to come to a complete stop because three deer were in the road. They were like the three bears: one big, one middle, one small. The little one just stood there in front of my car but eventually it joined its parents, big brother/sister - whatever they were.

Unhealthy

Scary:

Children who are on the path toward obesity have some worrisome cardiovascular disease risk factors as young as age 7, according to researchers tracking early childhood weight fluctuations.

What To Eat?

The answer, as it turns out, is food.

A Real Nice Beer

Crooked Tree IPA by the Dark Horse Brewing Co. of Marshall, Michigan.

Mari-Rose bought me some a week or two ago. Yummy!

Kitty

On my way to work there's this little black and white cat I sometimes see at the edge of town. It seems to be a loose cat - I generally see it around a bar and a car customization shop.

A couple of weeks ago on that stretch of road I saw a smashed animal with black and white fur. It wasn't a skunk; it didn't smell. So I thought kitty had bought the farm.

But this morning I was happy to learn that kitty is safe and sound. I saw her again, walking in the weeds outside the bar.

Just a nice little thing that happened today.

Curious About the News

Here's one thing I've been curious about. You know that news story about Sen. Larry Craig, who was busted in the bathroom for allegedly soliciting another guy?

His excuse was that he has a "wide stance" while using the bathroom, which is why his foot tapped the foot of the other guy in the next stall (an undercover cop, as it turned out).

But something about that excuse has never made a bit of sense to me, and I haven't heard anybody else bring it up: When you're sitting on the pot, you've got your pants and underwear around your ankles. That limits how far you can move your feet, doesn't it? It means your stance can't really be too wide, doesn't it?

Anyway that's my curious thought for the day.

Okay, now I have to go to the bathroom...

Oooooh, This Is a Bad Idea

Homeowners Using Credit Cards to Make Mortgage Payments

Yikes!

John Raises Eyebrow; Says, "Fascinating..."

I read a fascinating, if very long, three part article, that asked and finally answered what seems an exceedingly simple question:

Two photographs were taken on the same day in 1855, during the Crimean War. The two photos are nearly identical, except one of them might have been staged for effect. Was the photo staged for effect?

It's remarkable how much effort it took to learn the answer.

The question isn't interesting. The quest is.

Here's What I Don't Get

I followed one of those links to a dumb, salacious news story today and I learned this:

The so-called "Preppie Killer," who served 15 years in prison for strangling a woman in Central Park, was arrested Monday on charges of selling drugs and resisting arrest.

Robert Chambers was released from prison on Valentine's Day 2003 after serving 15 years for the 1986 strangling of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin during a tryst in Central Park.

The undercover sting began after police received complaints alleging drug sales at Chambers' residence, where he lived with his girlfriend...

His girlfriend? He lived with his girlfriend?

Can somebody explain to me how a guy kills a woman "during a tryst" and then after he gets out of prison, finds a girlfriend to live with him?

Wouldn't you think that doing 15 years for murdering a woman would sort of take you out of the dating pool?

A Good Quote

From today's Writer's Almanac:

"[Writing a novel is] like creeping along on your belly with shells exploding around you. It's only occasionally that there's a ceasefire and you can get up and run."

Look What the Girls Caught

The girls went down to the creek yesterday afternoon with a babysitter, and look what they found.

Pretty impressive. It was about 2-3 inches long. Not huge, but bigger than any crawdad I'd ever caught as a kid.

This is a picture of it crawling back into the water after we let it go.

Cool Art

I didn't know you could do this to a book.

Kind of shame to lose all those words, though.

How to Be a Complete Jerk

From today's Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of the memoirist and novelist Bernard Cooper, born in Los Angeles (1951). His most recent book, The Bill from My Father (2006) is about a bill he received in the mail from his father itemizing every expense he had incurred on his father's bank account since the day he was born. The bill totaled 2 million dollars.

The thing that's hard to believe is that the dad would take the time to compile this list. It had to take hours and hours and hours and hours. And for what?

What a jerk.